The Seven Stages of Delacours'
by Poledra182
Summary: "We're visiting your aunt," Fleur replied, which Victoire had taken to mean that Aunt Gabrielle had gotten herself into some kind of trouble again. "She's growing a garden," Dominique added. "Lots of people grow gardens," Victoire pointed out, looking entirely unimpressed. "In their flat?" Dominique pressed. What she failed to mention, was the garden was more like a jungle.


**_This story takes place the summer before Victoire's sixth year. Louis will start his first year in the fall and Dominique is a year younger then Victoire._**

 _Dear Vic,_

 _I'm writing because you told me to let you know if, after Easter Vacation, things got worse. Things got worse._

 _Love,_

 _Louis_

 ** _Shock_**

The floor was covered in tiny, blue squares that were cracking in places. In all of her years at Hogwarts Victoire had never noticed the tile that covered the Quidditch locker rooms, though in her defense she hadn't spent a lot of time in them. She found herself looking at a rather red stain and wondering if it was blood.

"Are you listening to a word I'm saying?" Teddy broke off, his voice filled with frustration.

"You're breaking up with me," Victoire observed, her eyes straying from the tile up to his. They were a dark brown today, so dark they looked almost black.

"I'm saying it might be best if we had some space," Teddy corrected her, running his hands through his hair, suddenly unable to look at her himself.

"Do you want to see other people?" she asked, trying for clinically detached and letting more pain into her voice then she had intended. She'd been numb a minute ago, she wanted the numbness back.

"No, Vic, it's just, I can't breathe," he said, turning around so that she could see the muscles of his back stretching against his t-shirt.

It took her a minute, "Are you calling me clingy?"

He seemed to relax slightly at the annoyance in her voice. She knew he had expected screaming and yelling, not the emotionless, shutdown person she had been so far, "You've been possessive and jealous lately. You're like an entirely different person."

"Or maybe you don't know me as well as you thought you did," her mask was back in place and she had effectively shoved her pain down deep enough that it wasn't showing.

"I've known you since you were born," he reminded her, "This isn't you. The person sitting in front of me is someone that I don't recognize."

"Is that about it?" she asked, standing up from her bench and facing him. With the distance between the two of them they almost came off as the same height.

"No, that's not it. I want you to get mad, I want you to yell at me, I want you to tell me what's going on that's got you so upset," he insisted, taking several steps forward as he pleaded with her.

For a second, she wanted to talk to him, she wanted to express her anger and her frustration at how her life seemed to be breaking down around her, but as she looked into his eyes, all she could hear was him saying that he needed space. Her behavior the last few weeks was too much for him, but not showing emotion wasn't what he wanted either.

"Maybe it would be better if we just skipped to the part where you say we can still be friends," Victoire suggested and she watched as he slumped in defeat.

"I love you, Vic," he pleaded and she stepped back before he could reach out and touch her.

"I'll see you at the train," she suggested, turning her back and leaving him behind.

 ** _Denial_**

"I'm not going back to school," Victoire announced, propping her hands on her hips as she glared down her family at the breakfast table. The effect was somewhat ruined seeing as she was wearing her Weasley jumper and a pair of hole-covered, flannel pajama bottoms. She was also pretty sure that her hair was sticking out in odd directions.

"What are you wearing?" Louis offered unhelpfully.

"I think the real question is, how long have you been wearing it?" Dominique added, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

"That's not the point," Victoire dismissed them, "I'm telling you that I'm not going back to Hogwarts and you can't make me."

"You still have weeks of summer left," Fleur reminded her, glancing up from the pancake she appeared to be trying to chop into microscopic pieces. There were dark circles under her mother's eyes that Fleur wasn't even bothering to try and hide anymore and her eyes were red and blood-shot. Victoire assumed they were all just supposed to continue ignoring the yelling they had been hearing through the walls lately.

"Teddy said he'd be stopping by later," Dominique informed her.

"Tell him I'm sick," Victoire said flatly, turning around and retreating back up the stairs.

"Did something happen?" she could hear her father asking from behind her and she let out a frustrated groan.

Victoire retreated back into her room, turning the lights off, and burrowing herself under her covers. She didn't feel like ever getting out of bed again. As the sound of yelling echoed up the stairs, she pulled one of her pillows over her head and tried to block it out. It seemed her parents had decided to stop pretending.

"Teddy's downstairs," Dominique informed her as she let herself into Victoire's room. Victoire didn't show any indication that she had heard her.

"I think that you should go down and talk to him. You're clearly miserable with how things are now," Dominique continued, jumping onto the bed next to her.

"What happened with Mom and Dad?" Victoire asked, lifting her pillow half an inch so that she could make out her sister in the darkness.

"Dad stormed out, said he'd be back tonight," Dominique replied, her voice sounding far less composed then when she was discussing Victoire's love life.

"Mom?" Victoire pressed.

"She's been crying in her room," her younger sister replied.

"Tell Teddy I'm sick," Victoire let the pillow fall back over her head again and pulled her covers tighter around her.

"You can't stay under there forever," Dominique informed her.

"Watch me," she replied and listened as she heard her door shut again.

"We're going to France," her mother announced as she entered Victoire's room and pulled open the curtains. The effect was somehow lost, since it was night outside.

"Didn't we just visit at New Years?" Victoire asked, her voice coming out muffled from under all of her blankets.

"We're visiting your aunt," Fleur replied, which Victoire had taken to mean that Aunt Gabrielle had gotten herself into some kind of trouble again.

"She's growing a garden," Dominique gossiped as Victoire dug through her closet to find clothes to pack. It seemed that Dominique had been placed on babysitting duty while Fleur attempted to write a letter to Bill explaining where his wife and daughters were disappearing too. Louis was spending the night at George and Angelinas.'

"Lots of people grow gardens," Victoire reminded her, deciding that her pink blouse looked too cheerful and hanging it back up.

"In their flat?" Dominique pressed and Victoire conceded the point.

"Does this look like something an overly possessive girlfriend would wear?" Victoire asked as she held up another shirt.

Dominique tilted her head to the side as she considered, "Now that you mention it, it kind of does."

Victoire studied the shirt herself before moving over to her trash to throw it away.

"Do you think Mom is leaving Dad?" Dominique asked, her voice sounding more vulnerable than Victoire had heard it in quite some time.

"No," Victoire denied, wishing that it didn't taste like a lie in her mouth.

Growing a garden turned out to be an understatement. It was more like Aunt Gabrielle had decided to grow a jungle in her flat. Tall, bushy plants covered every available surface and sprung up from pots on the floor. They had to literally shove the greens out of their way to even make it into the living room.

"I see you've been redecorating," Fleur observed, after she had finished sneezing.

"Are these plants legal?" Dominique asked, looking at the plants with new interest.

"I'm fine, everything is just fine," Gabrielle insisted, her accent barely noticeable after spending several years working in the United States.

"You ended things with your fiancée and moved back to a flat no one even knew you were renting anymore," Dominique pointed out bluntly.

"Have you found a job?" Fleur asked, as they all ignored Dominique.

"I don't need one, I'm going to live off the land," Gabrielle replied.

"The land you bring back to your flat?" Dominique enquired, somehow managing to keep a completely straight face.

"I think it's a commendable goal," Victoire defended her aunt. Even Aunt Gabrielle looked at Victoire as though she had lost her mind.

 ** _Depression_**

"So, I found this really great book," Dominique announced as she entered the house and shoved her way through the plants. It was sad that they had more or less adjusted to living in the flat, Fleur was clearly allergic to something, but she seemed intent on ignoring it.

"Careful, Henry's frond is starting to break from being shoved out of the way all the time," Victoire called from where she had taken up residence on the living room floor. She had spent the day naming the plants that she could see from her current position.

"You named it Henry?" Dominique asked, raising an eyebrow as she appeared from amidst the foliage.

"I think it embodies the essence of him," Victoire explained.

Dominique skeptically looked the plant over before holding up the book she had been talking about.

"Is that a book about addiction recovery?" Victoire asked and her mother poked her head through the plants in the kitchen.

"Is there something you need to tell us?" Fleur questioned, the effect ruined by her sneeze.

"It has some helpful advice for taking control of your life and moving forward," Dominique explained, looking between her mother and sister with annoyance.

"You got it from Aunt Hermione, didn't you?" Victoire enquired knowingly.

"The cake will be done in two minutes. Gabrielle!" Fleur returned her attention to the kitchen.

Their Aunt appeared several seconds later, a watering can still in her hand. She glanced at the book that Gabrielle was still holding and took it from her, disappearing into the kitchen without a word.

"I don't think that it's safe for us to be breathing in the fumes of some of these," Dominique commented.

"I think we need some tropical birds," Victoire suggested, getting up to retrieve a slice of cake.

"I think we're still stuck in denial," Dominique commented from where she had been reading a book on the seven stages of grief from the sofa. Victoire had watched with part amusement and part horror as Dominique had fought with a vine to turn on the table lamp. She was pretty sure Ernie had lost some leaves and broken a vine.

"I feel depressed," Victoire observed, scooping another spoonful of ice cream, "Chocolate helps."

"I think we're at gluttony," Gabrielle added between her own bites.

"Gluttony is one of the seven sins," Dominique corrected her.

"It feels like gluttony," Victoire agreed, "I think we should buy shoes."

"Shoes might help," Gabrielle took the last bite out of the tub, "Fleur, we're out of ice cream."

Fleur made her way out of the kitchen, sinking down onto the floor next to them, "I think I'm done baking."

"We can't eat all of that food anyway," Gabrielle assured her, reaching over to pat her sister's hand, "I'm actually feeling kind of nauseated."

"I'm not happy," Fleur informed them, sounding incredibly lost, "I can't remember the last time I was really happy."

Gabrielle pulled Fleur into a hug as several tears made their way out of their mother's eyes. Victoire had never seen her mother cry before and she found it a mixture of distressing and relieving. If her beautiful, perfect mother could show human emotions, maybe Victoire didn't have to try so hard all of the time.

"He cheated on me," Gabrielle admitted, her voice revealing the depths of her own insecurities.

"I really loved him," Victoire said, wrapping her arms around herself.

She wasn't even sure when she started crying, but at some point she was pulled into a hug with her aunt and mother. It felt oddly good to cry out all of the emotions she had been burying inside of herself. Of course, she ended up with a headache after, but it was oddly worth it.

 ** _Anger_**

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Dominique asked apprehensively as Victoire sat in front of the mirror.

"I want it all chopped off," Victoire replied resolutely.

"You've never had your hair shorter than your collarbone," Dominique reminded her, the scissors shaking in her hand.

"I'll do it," Aunt Gabrielle suggested from where she sat perched on the toilet. She was lovingly stroking the fern that was sitting on the counter.

"Aren't you supposed to be the adult?" Dominique reminded her.

"Being the adult isn't any fun," she sighed, the words coming out more serious then what Victoire thought they warranted.

"What do you want to bet Dad comes down here when he finds out how much money Mom's spent?" Victoire changed the subject, eyeing herself in the mirror again.

"That might be her strategy," Dominique pointed out, setting down the scissors.

"Aunt Gabrielle?" Victoire turned to her Aunt expectantly.

Gabrielle moved over to the mirror, picked up the scissors, and cut. Long strands of Victoire's hair fell into the sink. Dominique screamed.

"What did you do to your hair?" Fleur demanded, so upset the words came out in French.

"I cut it," Victoire replied calmly, "And then I dyed it black."

Her mother's French became unintelligible at that point as she screamed, working herself up into a frenzy. She started pacing, her new shoes clicking on the floor, and she kicked one of her shopping bags when it got into her way.

"I think it looks nice," Gabrielle cut into her mother's tirade and suddenly found herself the center of it.

It lasted another five minutes before her mother burst into tears and Victoire hesitantly pulled her into a hug, "It's just hair, we can fix it."

"It looks nice," her mother admitted and Victoire exchanged a look with Dominique. This was not typical Fleur behavior.

"Maybe I should have something done with my hair," Fleur suggested after another minute.

"You've had a long day, I think it's time to get some sleep," Gabrielle wrapped an arm around her sister, handling her sister like one might handle a potentially violent snake.

They awoke the next morning to Gabrielle violently kicking at her potted plants. Dirt flew across the hardwood floors, staining any of the furniture that it came into contact with.

"I'll make breakfast," Fleur suggested, disappearing into the kitchen with a satisfied smile on her face.

Things got bad when Gabrielle got her hands on a pair of gardening shears.

"You can't kill them," Victoire demanded as she flung herself in front of her aunt.

"He's marrying his mistress," Gabrielle yelled, the shears coming dangerously close to what remained of Victoire's hair.

"That one is named after my Uncle George," Victoire explained, "And that one is Henrietta, she's an offshoot of Henry."

"That one does kind of look like Uncle George," Dominique observed, from where she was reading another of Aunt Hermione's books on the couch. She had created a chart of the seven stages of grief and was currently consulting the book and taking notes.

"People abandon you, people tell you that they don't recognize you anymore. These plants won't leave you," Victoire tried another tactic.

"Victoire," Gabrielle paused, clearly struggling with containing her fury, "Move."

Victoire hesitantly stepped to the side, her face filled with horror as Dominique chopped through the jungle that had taken over her living space. It took her a good hour to start making a noticeable difference, though she had eventually gotten out her wand and started cutting through them in huge chunks.

Fleur was cheerfully following behind her sister, cleaning. Victoire grabbed her jacket, the pile of mail she had been refusing to read, and left the flat without another word.

It took her two letters to discover that her friend, Bella Wood, had seen Teddy out with Patricia Thomas. They had apparently seemed very close and had even shared an ice cream cone. Victoire crumpled the letter in her hand and made her way back into the flat.

"I'll take the kitchen," she informed them, retrieving the shears from the living room end table.

She wouldn't be surprised if the neighbors heard her calling out, "Die Francine, die!"

Unfortunately, she had been a little to accurate and the Aurors showed up some time later to investigate what exactly was going on in Gabrielle's flat. The landlord really wasn't all that happy about it.

"I've seen people hoarding cats, but ferns?" the man was saying to the Aurors as they made their way through the apartment looking for bodies.

After her moment of blind rage, Victoire had become rather upset about the, "Bodies," littering the floor. Her mother had tried unsuccessfully to explain that Victoire had developed an unhealthy relationship with the plants.

"They're not all ferns," Victoire offered, from where they were being carefully watched on the couch.

"Please tell me these are legal," Fleur hissed to her sister out of the corner of her mouth.

"You have connections, right?" Gabrielle asked.

 ** _Bargaining_**

"I swear the guy I bought it from said it was completely legal," Gabrielle insisted as they were being escorted into a holding cell.

"I've been kidnapped," Dominique announced, "They were kind captors, but captors nonetheless."

"Do you know how frustrating it is to have your boyfriend call you clingy," Victoire was explaining to the Auror who was responsible for her, "We were almost at our one year anniversary and now he's dating Patricia Thomas. Would you pick Patricia Thomas over me?"

That question had earned her the extra charge of trying to seduce the Auror arresting her. She was really looking forward to explaining that one to her father.

In the end, it was Fleur who got them out of it, "I'm Fleur Weasley."

"The Tri-Wizard champion?" one of the Auror's looked up.

"You were there when Cedric Diggory died," another added.

"As you can see, the effects of the war still effect my family to this day," Fleur offered.

"I'm still stuck on the stage of gluttony," Gabrielle added and Fleur shot her an unamused look.

"We'll have to check out your story, but we can probably have you out before morning," the first Auror told them.

"This means we get to call Harry Potter, doesn't it?" the second one asked in excitement.

Fleur let out the most unrefined groan Victoire had ever heard come from her mother.

True to his word, they were out by morning. Harry and Ron had both come into the station to vouch for them, though they appeared to be enjoying the situation much more the Victoire felt that it warranted. Prison did not agree with Fleur, though the look she gave her brother-in-laws' kept them from openly mocking her.

"You tried to seduce an Auror?" Ron asked Victoire, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't suppose that when you tell the rest of the family you could phrase it so that it sounds like I've moved on from Teddy?" Victoire suggested.

"You know you have to come home and face your problems?" Harry reminded her, his voice more directed to Fleur then to Victoire.

"I'm pretty sure Aunt Gabrielle just got kicked out of her flat, we have nowhere else to go," Victoire replied, glancing over her disheveled and demoralized family.

 ** _Guilt_**

"I'm sorry," Gabrielle announced as they packed up her things. The landlord had given them twenty-four hours to get everything out.

Seeing as Gabrielle hadn't really lived there in a while, they were making good time at packing things up. Gabrielle had decided to move back into her parents' manor, though she seemed incredibly unexcited about the idea.

"Are you going to leave, Dad?" Dominique finally got up the courage to ask their mother.

"No, I'm not going to leave him," Fleur sighed, looking up from the box she was packing, "We let things spiral out of control, but I'm going to go back and try to fix things."

"Do you still love him?" Victoire asked, the question surprising even herself.

"I'll always love him," Fleur answered, her voice sounding warm for the first time in a very long time.

"Teddy didn't really call me clingy," Victoire confessed, "I wouldn't talk to him, I shut him out."

"Being a Delacour comes with more than just beauty, we're independent to a fault," Gabrielle revealed, wrapping several picture frames in dishtowels.

"And we're not very good at communicating when we feel like it makes us look weak," Fleur added.

"I guess we don't need this anymore," Gabrielle sighed, holding up her carefully constructed chart, "Then again, this might be marketable."

"You're such a Weasley," Victoire complained.

 ** _Acceptance_**

"Do we really have to do this?" Dominique asked as they stood on their grandparent's lawn.

"I think it's good, like a rebirth," Victoire said as she placed the fern into the ground.

"Please, don't mention birth," Gabrielle sighed and three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.

"No backtracking," Dominique insisted.

"I think I'm pregnant," Gabrielle revealed, choking on the words.

"I am partially at fault for the problems in my marriage," Fleur offered.

Victoire finished planting the fern and stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands, "I was not good at communicating with Teddy."

"You can't just think that you're pregnant," Dominique ruined the moment, her voice incredulous.

"You were exposed to who knows what in your flat," Fleur let out a groan.

Their trip home was postponed an extra few days to take Gabrielle to a healer. It was there that they discovered that she was, in fact, pregnant. The baby and mother would recover from any ill effects they might be under from their previous living environment.

"I have some suggestions for baby names," Victoire revealed as they were saying their goodbyes, "I'll send you a list."

"I've decided that gluttony should be a stage of grief," Dominique revealed, showing them her color-coded chart that didn't make any sense to anyone other than her. Gabrielle seemed oddly honored, but Victoire was pretty sure it was just hormones.

They had arranged a port-key to take them to Shell Cottage and had written ahead to let the family know they were coming. Victoire wasn't sure whether to expect a big turnout, or just her father and brother, but either way she wasn't looking forward to the tense reunion.

"Acceptance," Dominique made a mark on her chart.

 _ **I had the hardest time with the ending and I worry that the characters are a little OOC. I would love it if you would take the time to review and let me know what you think. I wanted something that balanced the serious with a little bit of humor, but I'm not sure that I passed it off. Thanks for reading!**_


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